Footnotes

[1.]The MSS. vary very considerably in these stanzas of invocation: many lines are generally prefixed in which not only the poet, but those who play the chief parts in the poem are panegyrized. It is self-apparent that they are not by the author of the Rámáyan himself.[2.]

“Válmíki was the son of Varuṇa, the regent of the waters, one of whose names is Prachetas. According to the Adhyátmá Rámáyaṇa, the sage, although a Bráhman by birth, associated with foresters and robbers. Attacking on one occasion the seven Rishis, they expostulated with him successfully, and taught him the mantra of Ráma reversed, or Mará, Mará, in the inaudible repetition of which he remained immovable for thousands of years, so that when the sages returned to the same spot they found him still there, converted into a valmík or ant-hill, by the nests of the termites, whence his name of Válmíki.”

Wilson. Specimens of the Hindu Theatre, Vol. I. p. 313.

“Válmíki is said to have lived a solitary life in the woods: he is called both a muni and a rishi. The former word properly signifies an anchorite or hermit; the latter has reference chiefly to wisdom. The two words are frequently used promiscuously, and may both be rendered by the Latin vates in its earliest meaning of seer: Válmíki was both poet and seer, as he is said to have sung the exploits of Ráma by the aid of divining insight rather than of knowledge naturally acquired.” Schlegel.

Trikálajǹa. Literally knower of the three times. Both Schlegel and Gorresio quote Homer's.

Ὅς ἤδη τ' ἐόντα, τά τ' ἐσσόμενα,

πρό τ' ἐόντα.

“That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view,

The past, the present, and the future knew.”

The Bombay edition reads trilokajǹa, who knows the three worlds (earth, air and heaven.) “It is by tapas (austere fervour) that rishis of subdued souls, subsisting on roots, fruits and air, obtain a vision of the three worlds with all things moving and stationary.” Manu, XI. 236.

“Veda means originally knowing or knowledge, and this name is given by the Bráhmans not to one work, but to the whole body of their most ancient sacred literature. Veda is the same word which appears in the Greek οίδα, I know, and in the English wise, wisdom, to wit. The name of Veda is commonly given to four collections of hymns, which are respectively known by the names of Rig-veda, Yajur-veda, Sáma-veda, and Atharva-veda.”

“As the language of the Veda, the Sanskrit, is the most ancient type of the English of the present day, (Sanskrit and English are but varieties of one and the same language,) so its thoughts and feelings contain in reality the first roots and germs of that intellectual growth which by an unbroken chain connects our own generation with the ancestors of the Aryan race,—with those very people who at the rising and setting of the sun listened with trembling hearts to the songs of the Veda, that told them of bright powers above, and of a life to come after the sun of their own lives had set in the clouds of the evening. These men were the true ancestors of our race, and the Veda is the oldest book we have in which to study the first beginnings of our language, and of all that is embodied in language. We are by nature Aryan, Indo-European, not Semitic: our spiritual kith and kin are to be found in India, Persia, Greece, Italy, Germany: not in Mesopotamia, Egypt, or Palestine.”

Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. I. pp. 8. 4.

“Chandra, or the Moon, is fabled to have been married to the twenty-seven daughters of the patriarch Daksha, or Aśviní and the rest, who are in fact personifications of the Lunar Asterisms. His favourite amongst them was Rohiṇí to whom he so wholly devoted himself as to neglect the rest. They complained to their father, and Daksha repeatedly interposed, till, finding his remonstrances vain, he denounced a curse upon his son-in-law, in consequence of which he remained childless and became affected by consumption. The wives of Chandra having interceded in his behalf with their father, Daksha modified an imprecation which he could not recall, and pronounced that the decay should be periodical only, not permanent, and that it should alternate with periods of recovery. Hence the successive wane and increase of the Moon. Padma, Puráṇa, Swarga-Khaṇḍa, Sec. II. Rohiṇí in Astronomy is the fourth lunar mansion, containing five stars, the principal of which is Aldebaran.” Wilson, Specimens of the Hindu Theatre. Vol. I. p. 234.

The Bengal recension has a different reading:

“Shone with her husband like the light

Attendant on the Lord of Night.”

Brahmá, the Creator, is usually regarded as the first God of the Indian Trinity, although, as Kálidása says:

“Of Brahmá, Vishṇu, Śiva, each may be

First, second, third, amid the blessed Three.”

Brahmá had guaranteed Rávaṇ's life against all enemies except man.

“I congratulate myself,” says Schlegel in the preface to his, alas, unfinished edition of the Rámáyan, “that, by the favour of the Supreme Deity, I have been allowed to begin so great a work; I glory and make my boast that I too after so many ages have helped to confirm that ancient oracle declared to Válmíki by the Father of Gods and men:

Dum stabunt montes, campis dum flumina current,

Usque tuum toto carmen celebrabitur orbe.”

A legislator and saint, the son of Brahmá or a personification of Brahmá himself, the creator of the world, and progenitor of mankind. Derived from the root man to think, the word means originally man, the thinker, and is found in this sense in the Rig-veda.

Manu as a legislator is identified with the Cretan Minos, as progenitor of mankind with the German Mannus: “Celebrant carminibus antiquis, quod unum apud illos memoriæ et annalium genus est, Tuisconem deum terra editum, et filium Mannum, originem gentis conditoresque.” Tacitus, Germania, Cap. II.

The Sanskrit word Sindhu is in the singular the name of the river Indus, in the plural of the people and territories on its banks. The name appears as Hidku in the cuneiform inscription of Darius' son of Hystaspes, in which the nations tributary to that king are enumerated.

The Hebrew form is Hodda (Esther, I. 1.). In Zend it appears as Hendu in a somewhat wider sense. With the Persians later the signification of Hind seems to have co-extended with their increasing acquaintance with the country. The weak Ionic dialect omitted the Persian h, and we find in Hecatæus and Herodotus Ἴνδος and ἡ Ἰνδική. In this form the Romans received the names and transmitted them to us. The Arabian geographers in their ignorance that Hind and Sind are two forms of the same word have made of them two brothers and traced their decent from Noah. See Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde Vol. I. pp. 2, 3.

A minute account of these ancient ceremonies would be out of place here. “Ágnishṭoma is the name of a sacrifice, or rather a series of offerings to fire for five days. It is the first and principal part of the Jyotishṭoma, one of the great sacrifices in which especially the juice of the Soma plant is offered for the purpose of obtaining Swarga or heaven.” Goldstücker's Dictionary. “The Ágnishṭoma is Agni. It is called so because they (the gods) praised him with this Stoma. They called it so to hide the proper meaning of the word: for the gods like to hide the proper meaning of words.”

“On account of four classes of gods having praised Agni with four Stomas, the whole was called Chatushṭoma (containing four Stomas).”

“It (the Ágnishṭoma) is called Jyotishṭoma, for they praised Agni when he had risen up (to the sky) in the shape of a light (jyotis).”

“This (Ágnishṭoma) is a sacrificial performance which has no beginning and no end.” Haug's Aitareya Bráhmaṇam.

The Atirátra, literally lasting through the night, is a division of the service of the Jyotishṭoma.

The Abhijit, the everywhere victorious, is the name of a sub-division of the great sacrifice of the Gavámanaya.

The Viśvajit, or the all-conquering, is a similar sub-division.

Áyus is the name of a service forming a division of the Abhiplava sacrifice.

The Aptoryám, is the seventh or last part of the Jyotishṭoma, for the performance of which it is not essentially necessary, but a voluntary sacrifice instituted for the attainment of a specific desire. The literal meaning of the word would be in conformity with the Prauḍhamanoramá, “a sacrifice which procures the attainment of the desired object.” Goldstücker's Dictionary.

“The Ukthya is a slight modification of the Ágnishṭoma sacrifice. The noun to be supplied to it is kratu. It is a Soma sacrifice also, and one of the seven Saṇsthas or component parts of the Jyotishṭoma. Its name indicates its nature. For Ukthya means ‘what refers to the Uktha,’ which is an older name for Shástra, i.e. recitation of one of the Hotri priests at the time of the Soma libations. Thus this sacrifice is only a kind of supplement to the Ágnishṭoma.” Haug. Ai. B.

To walk round an object keeping the right side towards it is a mark of great respect. The Sanskrit word for the observance is pradakshiṇá, from pra pro, and daksha right, Greek δεξίος, Latin dexter, Gaelic deas-il. A similar ceremony is observed by the Gaels.

“In the meantime she traced around him, with wavering steps, the propitiation, which some have thought has been derived from the Druidical mythology. It consists, as is well known, in the person who makes the deasil walking three times round the person who is the object of the ceremony, taking care to move according to the course of the sun.”

Scott. The Two Drovers.

Siddhas, demigods or spirits of undefined attributes, occupying with the Vidyádharas the middle air or region between the earth and the sun.

Schlegel translates: “Divi, Sapientes, Fidicines, Præpetes, illustres Genii, Præconesque procrearunt natos, masculos, silvicolas; angues porro, Hippocephali Beati, Aligeri, Serpentesque frequentes alacriter generavere prolem innumerabilem.”

The Michelia champaca. It bears a scented yellow blossom:

“The maid of India blest again to hold

In her full lap the Champac's leaves of gold.”

Lallah Rookh.

The story of this famous saint is given at sufficient length in Cantos LI-LV.

This saint has given his name to the district and city to the east of Benares. The original name, preserved in a land-grant on copper now in the Museum of the Benares College, has been Moslemized into Ghazeepore (the City of the Soldier-martyr).

“This is one of those indefinable mythic personages who are found in the ancient traditions of many nations, and in whom cosmogonical or astronomical notions are generally figured. Thus it is related of Agastya that the Vindhyan mountains prostrated themselves before him; and yet the same Agastya is believed to be regent of the star Canopus.” Gorresio.

He will appear as the friend and helper of Ráma farther on in the poem.

Now called Kośí (Cosy) corrupted from Kauśikí, daughter of Kuś]a.

“This is one of those personifications of rivers so frequent in the Grecian mythology, but in the similar myths is seen the impress of the genius of each people, austere and profoundly religious in India, graceful and devoted to the worship of external beauty in Greece.” Gorresio.

Kings are called the husbands of their kingdoms or of the earth; “She and his kingdom were his only brides.” Raghuvaṅśa.

“Doubly divorced! Bad men, you violate

A double marriage, 'twixt my crown and me,

And then between me and my married wife.”

King Richard II. Act V. Sc. I.

“One of the elephants which, according to an ancient belief popular in India, supported the earth with their enormous backs; when one of these elephants shook his wearied head the earth trembled with its woods and hills. An idea, or rather a mythical fancy, similar to this, but reduced to proportions less grand, is found in Virgil when he speaks of Enceladus buried under Ætna:”

“adi semiustum fulmine corpus

Urgeri mole hac, ingentemque insuper Ætnam

Impositam, ruptis flammam expirare caminis;

Et fessum quoties mutat latus, intre mere omnem

iam, et cœlum subtexere fumo.”

Æneid. Lib. III. Gorresio.

“The Devas and Asuras (Gods and Titans) fought in the east, the south, the west, and the north, and the Devas were defeated by the Asuras in all these directions. They then fought in the north-eastern direction; there the Devas did not sustain defeat. This direction is aparájitá, i.e. unconquerable. Thence one should do work in this direction, and have it done there; for such a one (alone) is able to clear off his debts.” Haug's Aitareya Bráhmanam, Vol. II, p. 33.

The debts here spoken of are a man's religious obligations to the Gods, the Pitaras or Manes, and men.

“And Kaustubha the best

Of gems that burns with living light

Upon Lord Vishṇu's breast.”

Churning of the Ocean.

“That this story of the birth of Lakshmí is of considerable antiquity is evident from one of her names Kshírábdhi-tanayá, daughter of the Milky Sea, which is found in Amarasinha the most ancient of Indian lexicographers. The similarity to the Greek myth of Venus being born from the foam of the sea is remarkable.”

“In this description of Lakshmí one thing only offends me, that she is said to have four arms. Each of Vishṇu's arms, single, as far as the elbow, there branches into two; but Lakshmí in all the brass seals that I possess or remember to have seen has two arms only. Nor does this deformity of redundant limbs suit the pattern of perfect beauty.” Schlegel. I have omitted the offensive epithet.

Divine personages of minute size produced from the hair of Brahmá, and probably the origin of

“That small infantry

Warred on by cranes.”

“It is well known that the Persians were called Pahlavas by the Indians. The Śakas are nomad tribes inhabiting Central Asia, the Scythes of the Greeks, whom the Persians also, as Herodotus tells us, called Sakæ just as the Indians did. Lib. VII 64 ὁι γὰρ Πέρσαι πάντας τοὺς Σύθας. καλέουσι Σάκας. The name Yavans seems to be used rather indefinitely for nations situated beyond Persia to the west.… After the time of Alexander the Great the Indians as well as the Persians called the Greeks also Yavans.” Schlegel.

Lassen thinks that the Pahlavas were the same people as the Πάκτυες of Herodotus, and that this non-Indian people dwelt on the north-west confines of India.

“The names of many of these weapons which are mythical and partly allegorical have occurred in Canto XXIX. The general signification of the story is clear enough. It is a contest for supremacy between the regal or military order and Bráhmanical or priestly authority, like one of those struggles which our own Europe saw in the middle ages when without employing warlike weapons the priesthood frequently gained the victory.” Schlegel.

For a full account of the early contests between the Bráhmans and the Kshattriyas, see Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts (Second edition) Vol. I. Ch. IV.

“Ambarísha is the twenty-ninth in descent from Ikshváku, and is therefore separated by an immense space of time from Triśanku in whose story Viśvámitra had played so important a part. Yet Richíka, who is represented as having young sons while Ambarísha was yet reigning being himself the son of Bhrigu and to be numbered with the most ancient sages, is said to have married the younger sister of Viśvámitra. But I need not again remark that there is a perpetual anachronism in Indian mythology.” Schlegel..

“In the mythical story related in this and the following Canto we may discover, I think, some indication of the epoch at which the immolation of lower animals was substituted for human sacrifice.… So when Iphigenia was about to be sacrificed at Aulis, one legend tells us that a hind was substituted for the virgin.” Gorresio.

So the ram caught in the thicket took the place of Isaac, or, as the Musalmáns say, of Ishmael.

Sítá means a furrow.

“Great Erectheus swayed,

That owed his nurture to the blue-eyed maid,

But from the teeming furrow took his birth,

The mighty offspring of the foodful earth.”

Iliad, Book II.

It was the custom of the kings of the solar dynasty to resign in their extreme old age the kingdom to the heir, and spend the remainder of their days in holy meditation in the forest:

“For such through ages in their life's decline

Is the good custom of Ikshváku's line.”

Raghuraṅśa.

See [Book I, Canto XXXIX]. An Indian prince in more modern times appears to have diverted himself in a similar way.

It is still reported in Belgaum that Appay Deasy was wont to amuse himself “by making several young and beautiful women stand side by side on a narrow balcony, without a parapet, overhanging the deep reservoir at the new palace in Nipani. He used then to pass along the line of trembling creatures, and suddenly thrusting one of them headlong into the water below, he used to watch her drowning, and derive pleasure from her dying agonies.”—History of the Belgaum District. By H. J. Stokes, M. S. C.

“So in Homer the horses of Achilles lamented with many bitter tears the death of Patroclus slain by Hector:”

“Ἵπποι δ' Αἰακίδαο, μάχης ἀπάνευθεν ἐότες,

Κλᾶιον, ἐπειδὴ πρῶτα πυθέσθην ἡνιόχοιο

Ἐν κονίνσι πεσόντος ὑφ' Ἕκτορος ἀνδροφόνοιο”

Iliad. XVII. 426.

“Ancient poesy frequently associated nature with the joys and sorrows of man.” Gorresio.

So dying York cries over the body of Suffolk:

“Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk!

My soul shall thine keep company to heaven:

Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast.”

King Henry V, Act IV, 6.

It would be lost labour to attempt to verify all the towns and streams mentioned in Cantos [LXVIII] and [LXXII]. Professor Wilson observes (Vishṇu Puráṇa, p. 139. Dr. Hall's Edition) “States, and tribes, and cities have disappeared, even from recollection; and some of the natural features of the country, especially the rivers, have undergone a total alteration.… Notwithstanding these impediments, however, we should be able to identify at least mountains and rivers, to a much greater extent than is now practicable, if our maps were not so miserably defective in their nomenclature. None of our surveyors or geographers have been oriental scholars. It may be doubted if any of them have been conversant with the spoken language of the country. They have, consequently, put down names at random, according to their own inaccurate appreciation of sounds carelessly, vulgarly, and corruptly uttered; and their maps of India are crowded with appellations which bear no similitude whatever either to past or present denominations. We need not wonder that we cannot discover Sanskrit names in English maps, when, in the immediate vicinity of Calcutta, Barnagore represents Baráhanagar, Dakshineśwar is metamorphosed into Duckinsore, Ulubaría into Willoughbury.… There is scarcely a name in our Indian maps that does not afford proof of extreme indifference to accuracy in nomenclature, and of an incorrectness in estimating sounds, which is, in some degree, perhaps, a national defect.”

For further information regarding the road from Ayodhyá to Rájagriha, see [Additional Notes].

It was the custom of Indian women when mourning for their absent husbands to bind their hair in a long single braid.

Carey and Marshman translate, “the one-tailed city.”

“The Jonesia Asoca is a tree of considerable size, native of southern India. It blossoms in February and March with large erect compact clusters of flowers, varying in colour from pale-orange to scarlet, almost to be mistaken, on a hasty glance, for immense trusses of bloom of an Ixora. Mr. Fortune considered this tree, when in full bloom, superior in beauty even to the Amherstia.

The first time I saw the Asoc in flower was on the hill where the famous rock-cut temple of Kárlí is situated, and a large concourse of natives had assembled for the celebration of some Hindoo festival. Before proceeding to the temple the Mahratta women gathered from two trees, which were flowering somewhat below, each a fine truss of blossom, and inserted it in the hair at the back of her head.… As they moved about in groups it is impossible to imagine a more delightful effect than the rich scarlet bunches of flowers presented on their fine glossy jet-black hair.” Firminger, Gardening for India.

I omit five ślokas which contain nothing but a list of trees for which, with one or two exceptions, there are no equivalent names in English. The following is Gorresio's translation of the corresponding passage in the Bengal recension:—

“Oh come risplendono in questa stagione di primavera i vitici, le galedupe, le bassie, le dalbergie, i diospyri … le tile, le michelie, le rottlerie, le pentaptere ed i pterospermi, i bombaci, le grislee, gli abri, gli amaranti e le dalbergie; i sirii, le galedupe, le barringtonie ed i palmizi, i xanthocymi, il pepebetel, le verbosine e le ticaie, le nauclee le erythrine, gli asochi, e le tapie fanno d'ogni intorno pompa de' lor fiori.”

The semi divine Hanumán possesses, like the Gods and demons, the power of wearing all shapes at will. He is one of the Kámarúpís.

Like Milton's good and bad angels “as they please

They limb themselves, and colour, shape, or size

Assume as likes them best, condense or rare.”

“In our own metrical romances, or wherever a poem is meant not for readers but for chanters and oral reciters, these formulæ, to meet the same recurring case, exist by scores. Thus every woman in these metrical romances who happens to be young, is described as ‘so bright of ble,’ or complexion; always a man goes ‘the mountenance of a mile’ before he overtakes or is overtaken. And so on through a vast bead-roll of cases. In the same spirit Homer has his eternal τον δ'αρ' ὑποδρα ιδων, or τον δ'απαμειβομενος προσφη, &c.

To a reader of sensibility, such recurrences wear an air of child-like simplicity, beautifully recalling the features of Homer's primitive age. But they would have appeared faults to all commonplace critics in literary ages.”

De Quincey. Homer and the Homeridæ.

Fire for sacred purposes is produced by the attrition of two pieces of wood. In marriage and other solemn covenants fire is regarded as the holy witness in whose presence the agreement is made. Spenser in a description of a marriage, has borrowed from the Roman rite what he calls the housling, or “matrimonial rite.”

“His owne two hands the holy knots did knit

That none but death forever can divide.

His owne two hands, for such a turn most fit,

The housling fire did kindle and provide.”

Faery Queen, Book I. XII. 37.

The Vedas stolen by the demons Madhu and Kaiṭabha.

“The text has [Sanskrit text] which signifies literally ‘the lost vedic tradition.’ It seems that allusion is here made to the Vedas submerged in the depth of the sea, but promptly recovered by Vishṇu in one of his incarnations, as the brahmanic legend relates, with which the orthodoxy of the Bráhmans intended perhaps to allude to the prompt restoration and uninterrupted continuity of the ancient vedic tradition.”

Gorresio.

The wood in which Skanda or Kártikeva was brought up:

“The Warrior-God

Whose infant steps amid the thickets strayed

Where the reeds wave over the holy sod.”